


The Joy Of Violent Movement

by marchingjaybird



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-02
Updated: 2010-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-06 23:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchingjaybird/pseuds/marchingjaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a kindred spirit comes from the most unlikely place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Joy Of Violent Movement

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fickle_goddess for the help_haiti community on LJ.

Stephanie stood on the rooftop, staring out across Gotham and wondering what in the world she thought she was doing.

She wasn't new to the superhero business, not by a long stretch, and she'd been trained by some of the best, but there lingered a thread of doubt. She'd started doing this because of her father. She'd continued to do it because… well, she didn't really know. It was necessary, it was fulfilling. It was _fun_. There was a rush to it that she didn't like to own, a thrill that came with violent connection that she couldn't admit to.

She flexed her fingers, felt the creak of leather gloves. One hand flicked up, then back down. It was hard to resist the urge to touch the bat on her chest, to trace the outlines of the wings. It still surprised her when she saw her reflection , black and yellow. She was really part of the family now.

A faint smile touched her lips and she tensed her legs, gathering them beneath her as she prepared to dive off of the ledge. There were things to do tonight, and if she stood here much longer, Oracle would get on the comm and ask her what she was waiting for. Not in a mean way, or even in a pushy way, but in that strange tone of voice that adults took when they were trying to guide and weren't certain of how it would be received.

A sound behind her froze her muscles. The scrape of a booted foot on the gravel that littered the rooftop, deliberate and loud. Stephanie pivoted, dropping into a defensive crouch, then almost lost it as her visitor stepped out of the shadows and into the neon glow of Gotham's nighttime. Black jacket, red mask. Her fingers twitched and flexed and her heart stuttered a little in her chest.

"Stay there," she warned. Oracle spoke into her ear, voice level and steady. "_Stephanie, is everything all right? Your vitals just spiked._" She didn't answer, kept her eyes on the figure in front of her. Was it him? There was no telling. He was dead, he wasn't dead, he was out of the country, he was back in Gotham. It was next to impossible to keep track of Jason Todd, and Stephanie had learned skepticism in her tenure as a mask.

"What's wrong, Batgirl?" he asked, folding his arms across his chest. "You think I'm here to hurt you?"

"I sure don't think you're here to help me," she countered. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders, then held out his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"If I'd wanted to hurt you, I could have shoved you off the roof a long time ago," he said. "The Bat trained me, too, you know." There was a heavy bitterness in his voice that left no doubt as to whose face was under that hood.

"So what do you want?" Stephanie demanded.

"Just to talk," Jason answered.

"I don't have anything to say to you," Stephanie snapped. She wanted to turn, to jump and run and get away from the edge of madness that hung in the air. But did she dare turn her back on Jason Todd?

"Don't be that way," he murmured, stepping forward again. Stephanie didn't flinch, but she was tensed so tightly that she felt like a spring about to give way. "We Bat rejects ought to stick together, don't you think?"

She did recoil then, rising and spinning and dropping from the edge of the roof to land ungracefully on the next building down. Damn Jason Todd and his guns and his madness. If he shot her in the back now, it couldn't hurt worse than his words, echoing her own deepest, most private fears.

*

"Are you all right, Stephanie?"

She lifted her eyes and focused on Barbara, trying to bring her mind to bear. It had been hard to concentrate these past couple of days, focused as she was on what Jason had said to her. The more she turned it over in her head, the harder it was to dismiss. _Bat rejects_. At first she'd been insulted, but now…

"Why didn't you call me Batgirl?" she asked. Barbara's eyes widened slightly.

"I'm sorry?"

"When I was out on patrol the other night, and you got worried. You called me Stephanie."

Barbara looked confused, then guilty, and Stephanie lifted her chin. "I did do that, didn't I? I apologize." She focused on Stephanie then, her eyes narrowing, her expression becoming sharply suspicious. "Why are you bringing this up now?"

_Because now I know how it really is with us_, she thought. _Because now I realize that when it comes down to it, I'll never fill your shoes_. As if that was different from usual. She didn't exactly have a great record as far as filling shoes went.

But neither did Jason.

"It doesn't matter," she said, standing up. "I better go. It's time to get suited up."

*

"Fancy meeting you out here," he said.

"Oh, shut up," she answered, folding her arms. "Don't pretend you weren't waiting on me."

Jason pushed himself off the side of the building and shrugged his shoulders. God, he was annoying. Smug and weird and a total know-it-all. For a second, she considered exiting the conversation before he could say anything else to ruin her life, but he tucked his hands into his pockets and inclined his head slightly, and it was such an obvious gesture of humility and apology that she softened a little bit. Just a little bit.

"I figured you would come back," he said. "We have a lot to talk about."

"No," she said flatly. "We really don't."

"Then why are you here?"

Stephanie hesitated, then drew a breath. "I just came here to tell you that you're wrong. I'm not a reject. I'm Batgirl, and—"

"And you've got Oracle chattering away in your ear every night," Jason interrupted. "Telling you what to do, where to go." He must have read surprise in her expression, because when he continued, his voice was smiling. "Yes, I know all about Oracle. And I know about you, Stephanie."

"You don't know anything," she said. It sounded weak, even to her.

"I know _everything_," he snarled. He advanced on her and she raised her arms. Not much defense if he really decided to attack her, but she refused to run from him again. "I know how it feels to be abandoned. I know how it feels to die and be replaced. And _you_ do, too! You're the same as me, like it or not." The aggression drained out of him as suddenly as it had appeared, and Stephanie slowly lowered her defensive stance. "You just haven't gotten used to the idea yet."

"I'm not giving up," Stephanie said. Her voice was small, still, but stronger this time. Firm.

"No," said Jason. "I didn't expect you to." He paused, cocked his head. "Is she listening?" Stephanie hesitated, then shook her head. She'd switched off the comm, at least temporarily. Barbara would have a fit, but this was none of her business.

"Good," he continued. The tip of one gloved finger rested lightly on her sternum. When she didn't pull away, he began tracing the bat with his fingertip, dragging it lightly over her breasts as he spoke. "Why don't you come with me tonight? See another side of the crime-fighting coin." He ended where he'd started, finger prodding her in the chest as she fought back a wave of shivers.

"Yeah," she said, after a moment. "All right."

*

They scattered before her like a flock of startled birds, and Stephanie had never felt so triumphant. She caught one by the back of his shirt, spun him around and hammered her fist into his face. He went down, hands cupped over his face to stem a flood of blood from his broken nose and she allowed herself an illicit thrill. This was how it had been back in the Spoiler days, swooping in on a group of thugs, beating the tar out of them, leaving the cops to clean up the mess. She hadn't realized how heavy the Batgirl cowl was, how weighed down she felt in someone else's identity.

There was a crack to her left and she spun, watching Jason take down two more of the thugs with a couple of well-placed blows. He might have been kind of a d-bag, and he was definitely unbearable, but watching him fight was like watching a truck crash into cracker. Every single blow was measured, every movement precise, every strike crippling. There was nothing poetic about it, but there was something beautiful in the way his muscles tensed and released, in the pivot and the swing and the bone-crunching rhythm of it all.

"Behind you," he said, and she turned, and then his hands were around her waist, broad and strong, lifting her up so that the toe of her boot connected with the jaw of the lowlife that had been creeping up on her from behind. She felt the shock all the way up her leg, laughed as Jason swung her over his head. He released her at the top of her arc and she twisted, landing lightly behind him. She didn't think about it, didn't weigh consequences, just pressed her back to his, socking her shoulder into the hollow between his shoulder blades and wondering if this was how it was supposed to be. She felt _good_, appreciated and needed, like a partner instead of a tag-along, and every time she connected with one of the thugs, every time she felt the impact of a blow shiver through her body, it woke a fierce joy in her heart. She could do it all night, blood singing, muscles burning; it was better than running, better than gymnastics, better than sex.

"Jason," she said, a blissful little exhale. He twisted behind her, sweeping his opponent off his feet and kneeling fluidly to hammer him in the chest. He tipped his head up and she wished suddenly that she could see his face, just to see if he was smiling as broadly as she was. She pivoted at a noise behind her, leg swinging out and landing the kick. The guy flew back and slammed against a wall, and she shivered.

"Feels good doesn't it?" Jason murmured. His hand pressed the small of her back, beneath the cape, and she nodded. It _did_ feel good to just fight. No rhyme or reason, no elaborate plot, no cleverness, no interference, just plain violence, perfectly uncomplicated. She bared her teeth in a smile as her recently downed opponent struggled to his feet, and she tensed, waiting for him. His hand dipped into a pocket and when it re-emerged, he was holding a switchblade.

"_NO_!" Jason was away from her side in an instant, his own hand flashing in and out of his coat so quickly that she barely saw it, didn't even register the implication until she saw the gleam of the streetlight on the barrel of his gun. "No weapons!"

"_Jason_!" Her scream was drowned out by the roar of the gun, and she watched in sick horror as the thug fell, a hole perfectly set between his eyes, the back of his head destroyed. Bile rose in her throat and she wrapped her arms around her stomach. "Jesus, Jason, you just killed him…"

"He deserved it," Jason answered, and his voice was flat and strange. Stephanie shivered and started to shake her head, when a voice from behind cut her off.

"Batgirl…" She turned, eyes wide, muscles trembling, and saw Huntress standing at the corner of the street. Her crossbow was leveled at Jason.

"What are you doing?" Stephanie asked, numb and not at all surprised.

"Oracle sent me to check on you," Huntress answered. "You weren't responding." She hesitated, beautiful mouth curling down in a grimace. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." Stephanie looked from Huntress to Jason, then stepped forward into Huntress's line of sight. Her cape snapped behind her as she walked towards the other vigilante, and Huntress frowned, shifted indecisively, then lowered the crossbow. "Can we just go?"

Huntress studied her for a long moment, then looked over Stephanie's shoulder. Stephanie turned, following her gaze, and saw that Jason had made the escape that she'd afforded him. Nodding wearily, she returned her attention to Huntress. They stared at each other in silence, then Huntress nodded. "Yeah," she answered, gripping Stephanie's shoulder and squeezing. She wanted to ask, Stephanie knew, but she wouldn't. Maybe because she didn't want to know; more likely because she understood. "We'll just go."


End file.
